Alarmed that fewer than one-fourth of voters are showing up for municipal elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Thursday to recommend that the City Council look at using cash prizes to lure a greater number of people to the polls.

On a 3-0 vote, the panel said it wanted City Council President Herb Wesson’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee to seriously consider the use of financial incentives and a random drawing during its elections, possibly as soon as next year.

I think this is a bad thing, to start paying people to vote. If they will only vote because some pays them to, then they obviously do not care very much.

A survey of young people in NZ found that allowing voting over the Internet would motivate more young people to vote, than paying them $50.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2014 at 4:51 pm and is filed under International Politics.
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17 Responses to “Prizes for voting?”

Voting starts on the 3rd September when you can go to a polling place and make an advance vote. There is no need to make voting easier That would only encourage the lazy and they would not vote for parties that were in favour of initiative and hard work. Voting is easy, it does not need to be made any easier.

Why do people get so upset over ‘non voters’?
If you can’t be arsed or don’t care enough then it’s probably best that you don’t freaking vote!!
And why do we so desperately want ‘Young People’ to vote? We saw with Lordy bleating on about ‘don’t vote for old men in suits’ that they lack the maturity to make an informed decision…

It is the left of politics that thinks voting should be made as easy as possible. Voting should not be made any easier. If someone is too damn lazy to struggle down to the polling booth one day every three years, he is too damn lazy to take the trouble to get acquainted with what’s on offer. Those sort of people default to the left, because they regard leftist politicians as the tooth fairy who bestows money and gifts on them, free of charge.

How about we adjust our electoral system so that every registered voter who doesn’t vote counts as 1 vote for “empty seat”? If 20% of voters don’t vote then only 96 seats get filled. Voters don’t participate then politicians don’t get to either. Better than turning out that 20% and getting 24 leftie muppets.

meow (17 comments) says:
August 16th, 2014 at 6:03 pm
Anyone advocating making elections internet based has rocks in their head.

How would you secure it? How do you authenticate the result? How do you prevent wealthy immigrants who buy political parties from subverting the process?

I’d want some way with independent verification, so everyone who votes gets that vote recorded in multiple places owned by multiple organisations. This way they’d all have to add up, and hopefully you could use some method to see where each place had you recorded. Then no-one could go all Matt McCarten dishonest fraudulent on your arse.

BR (82 comments) says:
August 16th, 2014 at 5:43 pm
It is the left of politics that thinks voting should be made as easy as possible. Voting should not be made any easier. If someone is too damn lazy to struggle down to the polling booth one day every three years, he is too damn lazy to take the trouble to get acquainted with what’s on offer. Those sort of people default to the left, because they regard leftist politicians as the tooth fairy who bestows money and gifts on them, free of charge.

This goes for both left and right, despite your wanting to paint it the way it suits you to see it. When was the last time you saw someone turn down the dole, left or right? Or for that matter paid parental leave? Or working for familites? Everyone likes free shit, and can choose to forget that they’re taking from others, however it is dressed up.

Choosing not to have internet voting just because “the left will abuse it” is the kind of thinking that justifies gerrymandering in the USA. Or pulling some switch to disenfranchise the blacks from being able to vote. It’s not based on good reasons, it’s just lashing out.

As long as the news media in NZ do not call people on the shit that matters, we’re doomed to bad voting choices anyway.